Buy it... if you have yearned to hear Alan Menken and the modern
Disney musical franchise take a serious turn together, for the
liturgical music for The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a sharp
contrast to their previous collaborations.

Avoid it... if you have little tolerance for the comedy numbers
that inevitably break up the mood of Disney's otherwise dramatic
stories.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #118

WRITTEN
9/24/96, REVISED 9/4/08

BUY IT

(8.99)

Menken

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: (Alan Menken) The 1831
Victor Hugo novel on which several film versions of The Hunchback of
Notre Dame have been based was not a likely candidate for Disney to
adapt into an animated children's musical, but the studio managed to
twist around the story enough to make it work. Unfortunately, in the
process of doing so, many of the more interesting aspects of the
convoluted love story, along with its inevitable tragedy, were
sacrificed for the sake of targeting young audiences. The basics are all
there, with Quasimodo, the badly deformed bell-ringer of Paris' Notre
Dame cathedral caught in an identity crisis that's complicated by the
emergence of a gypsy named Esmeralda, and his begrudging caretaker (of
sorts), Judge Claude Frollo. Also in the mix is the captain of Frollo's
guards, Phoebus. All are smitten with Esmeralda, which presents a
particularly interesting problem for the pious Frollo, an aspect of the
story that's been retained for mostly the adult audience. Like many
before it, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (along with its songs and
score), stirred up a flourish of anger in certain American communities.
Religious conservatives, an embarrassingly growing force in American
politics in the 1990's, boycotted this film because of the song
"Hellfire," a suggestive rejection of purity amplified by imagery of a
half-naked Esmeralda dancing in a fire. A few months after that, a group
of Baptist organizations went a step further and boycotted Disney all
together, partly due to the controversy of The Hunchback of Notre
Dame and partly because Disney World announced its support for gay
rights. On the flip side, overly sensitive left-wing liberals who
claimed to fight for the rights of the handicapped also boycotted the
film and its soundtrack, rejecting the term "hunchback," which, in the
politically correct environment of the 1990's, was deemed inappropriate.
It's hard to imagine what Hugo would have thought of not only this
musical but also the morons who protested it. Alan Menken's songs and
scores were similarly met with controversy, but luckily the complaints
regarding the music were better grounded in reasons of quality.

The film turned out to be last of Disney's successful
string of musicals in collaboration with composer Alan Menken, with whom
the studio had reinvented the genre with The Little Mermaid. Each
successive film and soundtrack since Beauty and the Beast had
been slightly less attractive, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is
arguably the final impressive achievement by Menken before his work for
Hercules the following year would wipe him off the Disney map
until 2004's Home on the Range. This entry also represented the
end of the line for Menken's unparalleled string of Oscar wins. While
nominated for its score, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was upset by
Rachel Portman's Emma, a disappointment despite the problems that
Menken's score suffers. After such grand success with his previous
Disney collaborations, Menken, much like Quasi, was suddenly becoming an
outcast. Despite a few intentional breaks for comedy numbers, the
constantly frightening Latin chants and a heavy string, timpani, and
choral bass managed to scare many children (and parents, for that
matter) right out of the theatre. This move alone, however, was not what
sunk the film and its album in the end. Had Disney and Menken decided to
be true to the dark nature of the story, the film could have been a
brilliant adult feature, embracing the "Hellfire" and "Sanctuary!"
elements of the soundtrack and letting loose with a truly interesting
result. Unfortunately, a spattering of comedy pieces (with the usual
talking inanimate objects leading the way) lead to the three silly songs
that ultimately cause the film and album to be only a mixed bag. Working
against them are the serious, dramatically brilliant pieces that
resemble some of Menken's very best work. Among Menken's better songs of
introduction is "The Bells of Notre Dame," establishing the rich
combination of chimes, organ, and choir that define the score in
elegantly harmonic tones under the pleasant narrative voice of Paul
Kandel. Also impressive is David Ogden Stiers as the Archdeacon; the
actor was a featured performer in both Beauty and the Beast
(Cogsworth/Narrator) and Pocahontas (Ratcliffe). Also introduced
is Tony Jay, whose gritty performance as Frollo has always been heralded
as one of the film's greatest strengths.

The character song "Out There" opens with a
frighteningly sinister conversational interaction between Frollo and
Quasimodo before the latter performs his compelling cry for identity
with flourishing and redemptive orchestral accompaniment. Tom Hulce's
voice, especially compared to Jay, is appropriately light. Technically
the primary song is "God Help the Outcasts," performed elegantly by
Heidi Mollenhauer since apparently Demi Moore couldn't sing well enough
to suffice. A truly lovely and inspirational piece, this song is
reprised by Bette Midler for the pop song rendition over the end
credits. Somewhat of a reprise of "Out There" is "Heaven's Light,"
giving Hulce another opportunity to sing to all of Paris in optimistic
tones. Conversely, the darkest depths of The Hunchback of Notre
Dame exist in "Hellfire," one of the most stunning visual and aural
combinations in animation history. A Latin mass leads into Jay's
hauntingly deep performance of Frollo's torment, producing a song so
overwhelmingly compelling in an evil sense that it alone was worth the
cost of admission (and the album). The instrumental accompaniment to
"Hellfire" informs much of the score that chronologically follows in the
film. Unfortunately, the three lighter songs are a significant detriment
to the gains of the aforementioned themes and performances. The gypsy
song "Topsy Turvy" is a carnival-like, French-styled piece for the Feast
of Fools; the static pounding of the title lyric is extremely
irritating. The three talking gargoyles perform a slight jazz comfort
song in "A Guy Like You" that uses, like "Topsy Turvy," the Broadway
line-dancing technique of stopping the song and then progressing its
bloated performance from a standstill to proper tempo. This technique
was fine in "Be Our Guest" during Beauty and the Beast, but with
two usages in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it became predictable
and tiresome. Also breaking the spirit of the film's larger tone is "The
Court of Miracles," a jaunty and short gypsy-styled piece meant to
extend the narrative rather than establish another primary theme. The
film ends with a reprise of "The Bells of Notre Dame" in glorious
fashion, taking Menken's standard choral finale format and extending it
to strikingly overblown levels (with even a false ending for good
measure).

The score remains consistently dark and menacing, with
lengthy sequences of adult choral chanting, distinguishing itself from
Menken's usual light-hearted tones for the genre. The employment of the
songs' themes in the score tracks isn't as well integrated as it is in,
for instance,Beauty and the Beast, but it suffices. The high
pitch choral sound of "The Bells of Notre Dame" and "Topsy Turvy" merge
with fragments of the Quasimodo half of "Out There" for a disillusioning
̉HumiliationÓ cue. The gorgeous highlight of the score is "The Bell
Tower," which explores lovely incarnations of the theme for "God Help
the Outcasts" with a full choral performance of "Out There" at 1:20.
Both "Paris Burning" and "Sanctuary!" explicitly continue the
instrumental backdrop and Latin chanting of "Hellfire," a sound that
becomes more general in "And He Shall Smite the Wicked." The immense
sound of these three cues is remarkable for Menken, but the tolling
chimes, relentless organ, and forceful Latin chants are often presented
in unison, which could cause you a headache if you're not prepared for
their sheer volume. "Into the Light" concludes the score with a final,
choral reprise of the theme from "Out There." Menken's ability to stir
up chanting ruckus isn't as accomplished as that of major, dramatic
composers of the time, and a lack of sincerity in these sequences
remains an issue. On the whole, Menken's magical touch continues to show
itself at points in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The vocal cast
was very well selected (except for Moore) and is a pleasure to hear in
every song. Stephen Schwartz's lyrics are sharper than Howard Ashman's
were, with an erudite vocabulary in especially the Follo lines. The
indecision about the film and score's final attitude towards the story
leaves it a level below his Academy Award winning efforts, however. A
disaster was awaiting the franchise the next year, with the overemphasis
on the comical routine producing a wretched and embarrassing sound for
Hercules. Unfortunately, The Hunchback of Notre Dame would
be Menken's last widely-recognized and Academy Award nominated score of
the decade, and even so, it's a step behind Pocahontas and
leagues away from Beauty and the Beast. At least Menken went out
with one really noisy, liturgical bang. ***@Amazon.com: CD or
Download

Bias Check:

For Alan Menken reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.62
(in 13 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.52
(in 57,629 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.